Nick’s note: TheDerisoReport.com continues a series on 2009’s inaugural honorees into the Grambling Legends’ Hall of Fame, to be inducted this week:
All Charlie Joiner did at Grambling was win.
The Tigers earned the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship every year that Joiner, now receivers coach with the San Diego club where he made his pro Hall of Fame legend, played collegiate football under Eddie Robinson.
Joiner’s record at Grambling was a staggering 31-9-1 — a ledger that includes the 9-1 campaign in 1967 that led to a black college national championship.
“Charlie goes all out,” Robinson once said. “Beating the man, that’s where he excelled.”
Joiner, a meticulous tactician throughout his lengthy playing career, led all GSU receivers from 1966-68, gaining 2,066 yards. An amazing 78 of quarterback James “Shack” Harris’ 289 career completions at Grambling were hauled in by the steady Joiner, who led the team in touchdowns in 1966-67.
This powerful lineup also included future first-round selection Frank Lewis, who later won two Super Bowls with Pittsburgh before an All-Pro stint at Buffalo.
“With those weapons, you wanted to get to third down,” Harris told me, laughing uproariously. “We did a lot of damage. We had the best players in the state of Louisiana. We were so deep and so talented. There were guys that would leave Grambling because they couldn’t get a chance to play — then go other places and start.”
Joiner was named first-team All-SWAC three times, and given Outstanding Offensive Player awards in the 1968 Little Rose Bowl, then joined the GSU Hall of Fame in 1986 and the SWAC hall in 1996.
“Charlie was a great pattern runner, maybe our best ever,” Robinson once said. “Charlie knew where the ball was going to be, and his blinding speed almost always got him there.”
Joiner’s ageless pro career stretched from 1969 to 1986, though initial stays with the Houston Oilers (the American Football League team that drafted him in the fourth round) and Cincinnati Bengals lasted for just four years each.
“Well, you don’t like to be traded,” Joiner said. “You kind of think the team is trying to get rid of you. But, I made up my mind that whatever happened, I was going to go do the best I can for the team I’m with now. And, so when I got to San Diego, my mind was made up that I was going to perform to the best of my ability. I don’t think about what Cincinnati did to me.”
Instead, Joiner, in 11 subsequent years with the Chargers beginning in 1976, became one of the most reliable targets in all of the NFL. Seven times, he made 50 or more catches in a season. Three times, in 1976 and 1979-80, he earned Pro Bowl nods after notching 1,000 yard-campaigns.
Playing as part of the legendary “Air Coryell” offense, Joiner finished with 750 receptions for 12,146 yards and 65 touchdowns while helping San Diego reach the AFC title game in both 1980-81. He was inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame a decade after retiring.
Joiner then moved into the coaching ranks, overseeing wide receivers for eight seasons beginning in 1992 for the Buffalo Bills. During that stay, Buffalo won two AFC Championships and made appearances in Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII. He then coached receivers with Kansas City through 2008.
Along the way, Joiner has carried with him lessons learned under Robinson, still a guiding force in his life.
“He ranks right up there with Bear Bryant and Amos Alonzo Stagg,” Joiner said. “It reminds me of one time when another person asked this one guy if Coach Rob was in a class by himself. He stood there and thought for a long time. Finally, he answered: ‘I really can’t say, but it doesn’t take long to call the roll.’”
GET IN THE GAME:
For more on the Grambling Legends’ Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, to be held July 18 at the Civic Center in Monroe, visit www.gramlingsportshof.com.
Also featured in TheDerisoReport.com’s Grambling Legends series …
Collie J. Nicholson
R.W.E. ‘Prez’ Jones
Ernie ‘Big Cat’ Ladd
Willis Reed
Whenever I think of Charlie Joiner, I always have a visual image of a smooth polished piece of glass. Don't ask me why, but that image always come to mine when I think of him or hear his name mentioned. Maybe somewhere in my youth or teen years, I heard someone say he was smooth or something and it just stuck. Kinda strange I know…but that's just what he was as a player, smooth and polished.